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Air test today, had one done on the unfinished house to get an idea if anything was wrong before I start plaster boarding. Final test figure 0.28. Which I think is rather spiffing. I would like to thank my team. The wife for support and finance ralf and woody the wonder dogs,for guard duties and @Nickfromwales for the cakes and singing. .

FURTHER UPDATE: (Apologies if I’ve already posted this somewhere - I can’t recall) I went back to WPD before accepting the £3k quote to query again why we needed to fund the cable upgrade (as I suspected that they needed to do this in any case). Having read their licence terms, I found that I could request data on the demands on the cable, which I duly requested. Having done so, it put them in a bit of a tailspin. This resulted in a phone call from someone more senior, wanting to know why I wanted this information. I explained my suspicions about funding a necessary local area upgrade. Next thing I know, I get a new quote: £938… (not the data I asked for though!), but they spontaneously decided to fund the upgrade themselves…!!! Now they’ve been in touch offering for me to pop my other utilities in their trench at no cost to me. ☺️

We have doors! All those months of choosing were worth it. So happy with them! Especially love the magnetic catches ?

The Ardex and Mat are a great surface to fix to As mentioned above 6 mil screwed down are good also The handy thing with the 6 mil insulated boards are that you can stick them down with tile adhesive to make a perfect level floor Then bang some screws in the following morning

I think you need to weigh up the possible realistic worst case scenarios: i don’t think you need to worry about something actually failing, as it looks pretty secure and as others have pointed out here, it is unlikely to move anywhere. SEs often over-specify to cover themselves. So the most likely worst case scenario is that it fails building control. So I would just have a chat with your builder and say to him that as it’s not your area of expertise you hired an Se to design it and that you were therefore surprised he deviated from that design, but you don’t want to cause any unnecessary delays to his schedule, so you are okay with it as long as he is sure the BCO is okay with it and that you will be expecting him to fix it if the BCO raises any issues. That way, it is your Builder’s problem if the BCO raises it.

That's the same article I've seen. It's hard to find positive articles that are not posted by spray foam suppliers.

I've heard terrible things about the spray stuff. If you have bituminous roofing felt, you are right, it needs a 50m breather gap.

Oh.. They must have a fast belt conveyor then so. Then in my humble opinion I wouldn't ask any of my concrete to pour a slab unless there was extenuating circumstances at anything less than 120 slump. It's unnecessary hardship that if you get hot weather and not enough help could facilitate a disaster. We pour circa 2000 -3000m3 a week at work as a rule. Chat to your GW's tell them what you've been advised in case there is some particular quirk to your slab but as I say if I said I was getting 80 slump concrete my crews would baulk at me ..... plus they will only end up flooding it with water to get it workable and weakening your concrete anyway

Happier now. Got home, stripped the first one and etch primed: Much smoother.

The latter.

Or option 4 - Buy all/most of the materials for your house, but make sure to order plenty spare... get the VAT back and use to build your garage with the spare... This is a little deceptive but arguably you would get the VAT claim on it anyway, but it would need done with the house, this just saves you planning hassle if a PD garage suits. Just a thought.

Is it a new build? If so, then including the garage in the planning with get you the VAT back. Building it as PD will require you to pay the VAT. I'd go option 3, amend the existing planning, and carry on building what you currently have planning for, only starting the garage if they pass your amended plans. Yes, if they refuse planning on the garage, you can go the PD route - assuming no conditions on the planning that remove PD.

I would believe you could read this how it best suits you, so if you want to install a small treatment plant, it would not be unreasonable to assume property means the Title Deed for the house, which I assume is the house, its curtilage, and adjacent 15m of driveway. I expect the next section of driveway in shared ownership, so is on a different Title. If you are able to work within the General Binding Rules, then you have no need to contact the EA, so no one will be involved to question it.

There seems to be some misunderstanding about 0°C. Much better to calculate on the kelvin scale, then you will see how little the CoP actually drops. The biggest enemy is really humidity at ~4°C, this is when air will have its highest humidity levels (note humidity not relative humidity), this is why ASHPs are oversized, once above or below that temperature, the CoP often rises. They work by extracting energy by cooling the air that passes though them, if they cool some water, then they get extra energy. If you had to choose a temperature scale the zero point should be the lowest temperature that the refrigerant gas can go to, but that is all a bit academic. But as @IanR points out, the DHW is the real challenge, not the space heating.

I wish.

Nice and crisp.

Get into Linux Kali and **** their WiFi up for a start. If the music is being streamed that'll help. ?

A good groundworker should know what he is doing. Just check that he is what he says he is and then use the BC officer to make sure standards are what they should be. Our, very experienced groundworker would have cut corners that the BC officer would not allow.

Looks about right to me. I have done exactly one SIPS roof, to a very similar way to your drawings. Would agree that fillets to support the eaves protectors are a good plan. I made mine from the offcuts from the splines.

I struggled to find much info previously before our build, now it's completed, I'd like to share our experiences for those who are in a similar dilemma as myself. Our build has a south east facing pitch at 40 degree, designed to be optimised for solar pv, with 16 in roof panels installed, total of 5.3kwh output, in Stockport, Northwest, by no means the sunniest part of the country. We wanted a storage battery from the start, which plays a catalyst in energy dependency since we only have electricity, which also powers air source heat pump, in the end we decided on Tesla Powerwall, more capacity, better warranty, cheaper tariff (Tesla Power Plant or Tesla Energy Plan if you also drive a Tesla), better app control and more advanced battery tech etc. Some, including ourselves were skeptical about how well our theory would work, whether there would be enough sunshine to even fully charge the battery, never mind export back to the grid to offset cloudy days. The results are staggering. We have 82% energy offset since the system was commissioned (two months approx) including charging EV, and recently we are running 98% self sufficiency, with battery getting full charge by 10am! Selling the rest back to the grid for the same cost as we draw from it, thanks to Tesla's tariff. Of course, on rainy days we draw from the grid, but it's definitely looking like a worthy investment, especially when we experienced our first power cut, battery took over seamlessly, and the only house on the street with lights on! We now only wish to installed more solar pv on the rest of the roof! So far, solar pv + storage battery is working very well, far exceeded our expectations, and it's worth bearing in mind, it is not about the absolute saving on your electricity bills, but more self sufficiency and energy independence. Of course, the longer you have the system running, the more you will save, it is only a matter of time to recoup initial investment.

You still get paid your Generation Tarrif from what I read.

Does their land not rise at all in the corner of their plot, adjacent to you? The way they've stepped the decking up suggests it does lift a little, otherwise it would have been much easier for them to have built the decking flat. If their garden remains at the lower level there must be a retaining wall holding "up" your higher garden. Is the fence sitting on top of a retaining wall, in the corner? Unfortunately, if their garden is also a little higher in that corner then the height of the eaves is measured from that higher ground.

I used galvanised steel edging for that purpose in my last house. https://www.everedge.co.uk/product/halestem/

We have an Ideal Standard one in the ensuite bathroom that is anti-mist and has bluetooth speakers. Ideal for long soaks in the bath and playing music - I love it! Got it from a bathroom store locally who was selling off stock and merging with another store for around £60 when it was online for about £200. Our other two mirrors are all light up too but don't have the Bluetooth Speakers.

Yup. Never screw them down when the adhesive is wet. You can get the floors like glass with that technique. If going for UTH then consider 10mm for better local heat insulation. Faster heat up times can be achieved with a few minor tweaks / attention to detail.

Hello flanagai. It may be that an SE say or an Architect that has a good SE background is best placed to help here. At some point some calculations may be required for BC purposes if you encounter the unexpected. If you think about it this way. You'll be doing the rest from underbuilding up. The groundworks could be considered as a stand alone package. You are already "project managing" it. You can do a lot to help yourself and keep the cost down. Let's say you engage a local contractor to lay the founds and take the underbuilding up to wall plate level. To price this they will take your drawings, work out the amount of dig and muck away, the volume of concrete, amount of say blocks, wall ties and the amount of say lean mix cavity fill you need. Somewhere they often say.. "based on the drawings" Now for the self builder one problem that arises is if you need to make the founds deeper, say you hit a soft spot. In some case the founds need to be shallow if you encounter rock. Let's take the deeper as more common. Here you have many options; use say trench fill, just make the founds thicker using higher grade concrete if not that much, lay the foundations deeper and make the under building higher. However, there comes a point where your masonry wall thickness needs to be increased if it gets too deep, this is partly to do with the soil pressure on the side of the walls under the ground. All of a sudden things can grow arms and legs. Here an SE type person is often best placed to advise on the most economic option. What you can do is ask the contractor to give you a price based on the drawings but also give you rates for say extra dig, cost per square metre of each masonry leaf. Break this down into a cost say for up to 900mm below working site ground level and up to 1500mm below ground level. Also ask for rates to support the ground if you need to go deeper. Basically ask for rates for extra work. Now, if it turns out once you have excavated the ground that you need to do more work then you have a set of agreed rates. This can transfer more risk to you but you have more control. On the other hand you can just say to the contractor.. you take all the risk.. but you will pay for this.. very rarely will the contractor be the looser here. This is where an SE can really help. Get them in early and they will help you identify what rates you need to get in terms of extra work. Once you have set this up you should often be able to measure up your self and agree the payments. Now let's say you do need to do extra work. The SE will have a discussion with you and the builder and say here is the most economic way of overcoming the unforseen. In summary doing it this way will result in you paying for what you get.. often no more and if you all get on ok and you pay your bills on time you may get a bit extra for free as you'll know. For all, many contractors like working for good reasonable and fair clients so will occasionally go a bit less heavy on the invoicing.

We had OSB deck, 6mm insulated tile backer board (screwed down), primer, WarmStar electric mats, 2 part latex levelling compound to top of wire then adhesive and tile. Total build up was 25mm as we had a shower tray of that depth that magically was flush with tiles. Remember to put down a conduit for the thermostat which should go in same time as the mat. Get a testing box for the mats (detects earth fault and N/L shorts) and a digital multimeter to take the readings necessary for warranty. You can get decent kits with all the bits, usually with a cheap wall stat that you can replace with something nicer if you wish - I got the whole lot from WarmStar and fancier stats from UFHSS. Latex on eBay I think.

Is the CIL implemented in your area? Has he started any work on site? It's possible you may have to pay the CIL on your plot even if you would normally qualify for the self build exemption. That's because him starting triggers the CIL on both unless he applied for a phased development. This might be true even if you submit a new planning application for your plot. Its quite possible people on this forum understand this issue more than the builder or even your solicitor as they may never have heard of or encountered this issue before.

Will do in due course! Powerwall costs £8400 I think, which is fixed by Tesla, doesn't matter which installer you use. The connection is through Tesla Gateway, which diverts the electricity to the house, battery or back to the grid, very cleverly done. At the point of our build, tesla is the only battery comes with 10 year unlimited warranty. With powerwall and solar pv, you can join tesla's tariff, which you pay and get paid the same (11p per kwh, no standing charge), when you draw power from the grid and export it back. I think that might be the next best thing after FIT. Slim chance of paying it itself but hopefully summer exports can offset the winter demand.

No that doesn't loose it, either option could be developed.

couldn't agree more. too much flex in catnics, guaranteed to pinch the doors when the building settles/drys out. steel all day long.

Nope. This is a global thing caused by all the Covid money printing by Governments. You ain't seen nothing yet, what is the calorific value of a plastic bank note?

Alas I was nearly done before I read your above post. Have a look at the below and see if you have any thoughts. I have retained the ridge height, the location and orientation but changed the layout, the size, and the appearance. I have moved the kitchen dining into the sun. It amazes me how much main living areas end up at the dark north of a house. I have simplified the stairs meaning there will be more useable space below. The utility is much bigger and leads onto a carport area. The living is smaller but still a descent size and will allow for conversion to a bedroom later if required. This coupled with a wetroom WC will allow groundfloor living should it be needed. I elimated an ensuite but added 2 walk in dressing wardrobe areas. The front of the house is more balanced. The garage is detached and larger and should provide some additional separation between the neighbours. I have not included any fireplaces but one or two could be added to the kitchen or living room as required. Notes: Gross internal area 157m2, All walls 400mm externally and 150mm internally. Doors all 2100x900mm. All cabinets shown 600mm deep. All beds are king size except the master is superking. Jonathan I just noticed I forgot a door on the family bathroom.

That would be such a shame to demolish that garage, can you not create a drive around it?. I am a fan of the look of dormers but they are difficult to insulate properly without looking overly chunky. I would try to loose them.

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Wow, good on you girl, I think you should be nominated as the forums “the negotiator” ?

Our plumber pointed out that the position the supplier required for our meter meant that there was ample opportunity for bypass. I told him not to, as that would be illegal. I was sorely tempted. And I am no saint. Yet.

No the bloody dog had it by the time I came back in ??